Recent Reading

Syndicate This Blog

Blog Administration

Wednesday, April 18. 2012

Atrios has run a series of posts, starting with nine runners up and
converging on "the one true wanker of the decade." He distinguishes
"wankers" from "wingers" so as to give a pass to the furthest right
ideologues, propagandists, and lunatics -- possibly because there's
no end of them, also because the research quickly overwhelms anyone's
sense of humor. So his game are mostly self-professed centrists who
repeatedly wind up doing the right's dirty work. He also looks for
writers perched on big media outlets. (Alex Pareene has done similar,
more comprehensive lists. See his
Hack Thirty from 2010 and his
2011 Hack List.)

I don't have strong feelings here, mostly because these are people
I almost never read -- Sullivan is an exception, and I find his ranking
a bit puzzling -- and in some cases have never heard of. (Fred Hiatt is
one, but I'm told he runs the Washington Post's editorial page, which
makes it possible to knock all these blokes off with just one slot:
"Krauthammer. Broder. Hoagland. Kristol. Novak. Cohen. Lane. Cupp.
Thiessen. Kurtz. Samuelson. Diehl. Kelly. Noonan. Will. Ignatius.
Parker. Marcus. Milbank. Gerson." A couple names there don't ring a
bell either, but I can fill in first names (and more) for most of
them -- Robert Samuelson being a particular pet peeve.

What I'd like to see are some more specific lists: especially,
which journalists/pundits were most effective at shutting down any
sane discussion of 9/11 and the march to war in Afghanistan? I have
a much clearer picture of Iraq (Judith Miller and Kenneth Pollack
are key figures there, also George Packer). And what about the
insanity of thinking it safe to turn Congress over to Republicans
in 2010? I mean, a lot of "opinion makers" were simply negligent
in not realizing what that would mean.